Modern postage systems and devices are increasingly becoming more electronically and electrically operable, such that electronic and computerized systems have been devised to control the accounting and printing functions of postage meters. Postage meters for these advanced systems must be modified to properly interface with these electronic systems. This requires that the manual controls for the setting banks of the meter must be removed, and electrically and electronically controlled setting mechanisms must replace these manual controls. These new setting mechanisms act as an interface between the electronic system or computer, and the postage meter. Because the accounting registers (ascending and descending registers) are now part of the computer, the postage meter has been further modified such that the mechanical registers have been removed. In effect, such modified meters are now essentially only postage printers having the necessary physical safeguards required to prevent tampering.
The setting mechanisms for these modified meters are electrically instructed by the electronic system to mechanically set these postage printers.